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b-hebrew - RE: [b-hebrew] Why Semitic languages had no written vowels?

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  • From: "Stoney Breyer" <stoneyb AT touchwood.net>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] Why Semitic languages had no written vowels?
  • Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 14:17:40 -0500

-----Original Message-----
No speech could possibly distinguish short and long vowels consistently
over millennia. Short/ long difference is more characteristic of
chanting.


Well, English has been remarkably consistent in maintaining quantitative
distinctions over about a millennium and a quarter, despite radical
changes in quality. And quantity has never been a significant component
of English prosody.

Stoney Breyer
Writer/Touchwood, Inc.







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